


As Time Goes On

by Nevanna



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Birthday, Family Feels, Gen, Post-Weirdmageddon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:19:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: Five birthdays that Stan and Ford spent apart, and one that they plan to spend together.





	As Time Goes On

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to finish and post this story on the Stan Twins' birthday (June 15), but alas, it was not to be. I hope that it is appreciated anyway!

****

**1.**

As the light fades into dusk, Ford walks down to the beach alone.

His mother cooked his favorite meal (“You’re only going to turn eighteen once, Stanford!”), and they ate it at a table that still seems too big for three, while she chattered about the neighbors’ cats and last night’s graduation ceremony. Ford’s diploma sits on his desk, next to the acceptance letter from Backupsmore University. 

He and his twin spent years dreaming of this day as they walked along the sand; their dreams might even have once been the same. Ford briefly considered sending a card to the last address that Stanley gave Mom, but what would he say? “Happy birthday, and thanks for ruining my life” doesn’t exactly carry a festive ring.

By the time the stars come out and the tide starts to roll in, Ford has convinced himself that he neither wanted nor expected a message from Stan in return.

**2.**

Stan heard the date over the radio while he was driving across Kansas with a crate full of Cut-Tastic! Scissors. He stops in a speck of a town called Roadview, counts his change, and trudges into the only local bar, which doesn’t look much different from any other bar in any other speck of a town he’s driven through in the last few days.

He flashes Peter Stanton’s license at the bartender, and gives a humorless snort when he tries to imagine how Ford is spending their twenty-fifth birthday. The nerd’s probably holed up somewhere with a stack of books, working on his fifth or sixth nerd degree. “Have fun with that, Sixer,” Stan mutters, lifting his bottle of beer in what he thinks is the direction of New Jersey.

He’s barely finished half the bottle when a familiar voice blares from the TV above the bar: _“Are you tired of unpleasant odors in your house when guests are on their way?”_

Stan looks up to see his own face grinning from the screen, and his stomach lurches when the image gives way to a newscaster reporting from the nearest city. She’s describing the continuing scandal around Scent-Sational Scent Savers, which might have made houses smell better, but also caused the people who lived in those houses to itch uncontrollably.

Even sporting a goatee and with half a tub of gel in his hair, his face is recognizable. Time to put Roadview in the rearview, maybe even before he needs to re-attach it again.

He throws his money onto the bar, keeps his head down as he shuffles out the door. By the time he hits the highway, he’s discarded the ID that he’s been carrying, and slipped a new one into his wallet.

“RIP, Peter Stanton,” he says, fiddling with the radio dial with one hand. “Happy birthday, Hal Forrester.”

**3.**

“Don’t you want to celebrate, Fordsy?” Bill asks. “Last time I checked, thirty years old was some kind of human milestone.”

Ford looks up from his journal. His study is suddenly all golden light and inky shadows, and he wonders when he dozed off. “What did you have in mind?”

“That’s the question I should be asking _you_!” Bill exclaims. “In the mindscape, we can go anywhere and any-when you want!”

The possibilities unfold almost too quickly for Ford to comprehend them. “When I accepted – when I _welcomed_ – your help with my research, I never imagined…”

“Consider this a fringe benefit of our partnership.” His muse floats before him at eye level. “I guess you’ve spent your last few birthdays alone, haven’t you?”

“It’s how I’ve spent most of the last few years,” Ford admits. He and his best friend at university would sometimes go out for a drink on their birthdays, or organize a Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons campaign that lasted late into the night, but Ford hasn’t had much time for friendships or socializing since well before he moved to Gravity Falls.

He usually tries not to think about his brother, but on some days, it’s easier said than done, and this day is the most difficult of all.

For just a moment, he hears the cry of seagulls and smells the salt of the ocean. 

“You’re not alone anymore, Sixer.” Bill is within reaching distance, overwhelming every one of Ford’s senses. “Say, it’s been a long time since we went looking for magical objects together. Ready to follow my lead?”

“Always,” Ford says with a smile.

**4.**

Soos pokes his head into the taxidermy hall. “You need anything else from me, Mr. Pines?”

“You still here?” Stan looks up from the Fanged Platypus, which is “mysteriously” gaining a new set of fangs. He puts down the bottle of glue. “Nah, nothing comes to mind. Go play video games or knock over fire hydrants or whatever teenagers do in their spare time.” The sooner the Mystery Shack is empty, the sooner he can head downstairs, and try yet again to fix the portal.

“Actually, Abuelita wants me to put in some extra time on my homework,” Soos says cheerfully. “She says she’s going to make sure I graduate if it’s the last thing she ever does.”

“She’s got a point.”

“Really?” Soos’ eyes widen. “You rant about formal schooling all the time. I didn’t think you were a fan.”

“Didn’t say I was,” Stan grunts. “But I’m not gonna tell you it’s a mistake to finish high school. It’s better than the alternative.”

“Really? How do you know?”

Stan glares. “Unless your teacher’s quizzing you on your boss’ life story, you better hit the road.”

Soos hasn’t been gone five minutes before the phone rings in the kitchen. 

Stan’s conversation with his nephew is a little less awkward than usual. Even after more than twenty-five years, he still sometimes gets nervous that he’ll slip up, that his family – and everybody else – will find out that he’s an imposter, that the real Stanford Pines is long gone (though not, he hopes, forever). At least he can ask about the twins, his grandniece and grandnephew, without choking on the words.

“Let me put you on the speaker-phone. Kids? Come wish your Great-Uncle Stan a happy birthday!”

He hears a beep, a lot of shuffling, and then two tiny, shrill voices: “Happy birthday, Grunkle Stan!”

When the conversation is over, Stan shuffles back into the gift shop to make sure that all the lights are off and Old Man McGucket isn’t hiding behind the counter. Instead, he sees a gift-wrapped package, with his name scrawled in Soos’ handwriting, next to the register. He unwraps it to find a clumsily decorated mug that reads _World’s Best Boss._

Stan wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket and hopes that he remembered to turn off the security cameras.

**5.**

Ford doesn’t notice when his sixtieth birthday arrives. He’s attempting to barter fabric from Dimension 756 for food in Dimension 23.5, while avoiding the eyes (and noses) of Bill Cipher’s bounty hunters and hoping that the metal plate in his head is as effective as he was promised.

Stan might be proud of Ford’s ability to negotiate a deal with the five-armed shopkeeper, but he’s starting to doubt that he’ll ever see Stan again.

**6.**

There were some birthdays that Stan wouldn’t have minded forgetting.

A few of those memories came back as he and Soos drove around Gravity Falls last year, trying to put Stan’s mind back together. Others hit him while he and Ford were sailing across the ocean in search of mutant squid or singing seaweed. Sometimes the two of them have stayed up late in their cabin, talking through the past – Ford has told him a little bit more about Bill Cipher, now that they’re _mostly_ sure that the demon is gone for good – but they’re also learning when it’s better to give each other as much space as possible.

However Stan spent his birthdays over the past forty years – in bars, or in cheap motels, or in the shadow of the portal in the Shack’s basement – he and his twin have already made up their minds about where to spend their next one. When they told Mabel about their plans to visit, she shrieked so loudly that Dipper elbowed her and complained about a busted eardrum. Soos has already offered to meet their boat when it reaches the harbor.

Stan catches Ford’s eye and grins, and they watch the Oregon coast grow closer as the dawn turns into day.


End file.
